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At the same time, or separately, the abdominal muscles may be effectively exercised by being drawn in and thrust out with considerable force. None of these movements are elegant they scarcely put one in an artistic light; but they are highly effective in strengthening parts every voice-user must employ.
Entirely otherwise is it with the voice-user. He employs a delicate and easily injured vital apparatus.
With the voice-user, especially the singer, expiration becomes the more important, and the more difficult to control, as will be shown later. It must now be apparent that such use of the voice as is necessitated by speaking for the public, or by singing, still more, perhaps, must tend to the general welfare of the body i.e., the hygiene of respiration is evident from the physiology.
As it is so important, and above all to the voice-user, it merits special consideration. In studying the action of a muscle it is necessary to note its points of attachment to harder structures, either bone or cartilage. Nearly always one such point is more fixed than the other, and from this the muscle pulls when it contracts.
But, fortunately, it is being more and more recognized that man is a whole, and that one part of him cannot suffer without the others participating, so we shall pursue the broader course, and consider the general welfare of the voice-user as properly coming under consideration.
For those who feel that they have the time for a study of acoustics, the author would especially recommend Tyndall's work on sound, in which the subject is treated with wonderful clearness and charm. What we endeavor now to bring before the reader we have found sufficient for nearly all the purposes of the voice-user.
The author has always been of opinion that those who have investigated and written on this subject have devoted insufficient attention to one point viz., the manner of using the breath. The breathing in the use of the high falsetto, for example, is as different as are the laryngeal processes; and this is a point of practical importance, for the voice-user must ever consider economy in breathing.
The first thing is to get one perfect tone to use the vocal mechanism under simple conditions; and that tone should be chosen which the voice-user can produce of best quality and with greatest ease, with least expenditure of energy. It should never be selected from the extremes of the subject's range. From the favorite or best tone he should work down and up the scale.
If, however, in consequence of pressure on a part, the blood be kept back in these minute vessels too long, there is naturally a double evil: first, the food and oxygen supplies fail they have been used up already and, secondly, the waste products accumulate in the tissue cells, so that there is a combination of starvation and poisoning a sort of physiological slum life, with corresponding degradation; so that it is not at all difficult to understand why tight collars, neckbands, corsets, etc., must be unmixed evils, apart altogether from the fact that they so greatly hamper the very movements the voice-user most requires for the successful execution of his task.
To hand the singer a wrap after leaving the platform is always wise, and the judicious friend will see that conversation is not allowed, much less forced on the possibly breathless and wearied voice-user a precaution that is probably more honored in the breach than in the observance, for in this as in other cases one's friends are sometimes his worst enemies.
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